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SPEECH 



or 



HON. M. R. E GARNETT, 



OF VIRGINIA, 



THE STATE OF THE UNION, 



DELIVERED I* 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 16, 1861- 



WASHINGTON : 

M'GIIiL b WITHERCTW, PRINTERS. 

1861. 



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£440 



SPEEC H 



Mr. GARNETT rose and said : 

Mr. Chairman: On the first day of this session, the House ordered the ap- 
pointment of a committee, to be composed of one member from each State, t° 
consider the alarming condition of the country. Since then, it has been con 
tented to stand with folded arms and silent lips, while the flames of civil dis 
cord daily burnt more fiercely, though it has long since # been apparent that the 
committee can do nothing to arrest them. And when the history of these times 
comes to be written, 1 think the stolid indifference of the American House cf 
Representatives to the dissolution of the American Union will be recorded as 
one of their strangest phenomena'. State after State secedes ; and yet, though 
the minute guns successively announce that spar by spar, and timber by tim- 
ber, the mighty ship gives way before the storm, we still stand, like mere spec- 
tators on the shore, in helpless bewildermeut. I think it time to address our- 
selves earnestly to the danger ; not with anger, or bitterness, or exaggeration, 
but with a frank, truthful interchange of views, ascending above the horizon 
of party, as men upon whom Providencs has cast the fearful responsibilities 
belonging to those exceptional occasions in a nation's life, which determine its 
destinies, and affect the course of the world's history for generations yet un- 
born. It is in this spirit, sir, that I enter the debate. 

He who traces back the present troubles only to the 6th day of November 
last, would be but a shallow observer. Their causes are to be found, not in 
the mere election of Lincoln and Hamlin, but in the fact wlrch that election 
disclosed : that this once equal Union of sovereign Republics had changed into 
the dominion of one section over another section, into which it was divided by 
differences of character, of institutions, and in some sort, of race, coinciding 
with a geographical line. This revolution is not the less complete, because, as 
in Rome under Augustus, the old forms and names of the Constitution are pre- 
served. Such great historical changes are never sudden ; nor is this an ex- 
ception. 

In years past, the anti-slavery party had, after many vicissitudes of for- 
ture, broken down the great historic party of the Whigs, and the even stronger, 
though more ephemeral, organization of the Know Nothings ; but now it has 
burst through the last line of our defences, and, routing the Democratic forces, 
it has seized the sceptre of American empire — the object of its long ambition, 
of its patient toil. Under the name of Republicans, it has obtained every elec- 
toral vote, except three, in the eighteen non-slaveholding States, against and 
over the unanimous voice of the fifteen slaveholding States. Nor is its major- 
ity in electoral votes only. Its popular vote is one million eight hundred and 
thirty-one thousand one huudred and sixty-eight, against one million five hun- 
dred and seventy-four thousand and ninety-one. It has a plurality of the pop- 
ular vote in Oregon and California, and an absolute majority in every northern 
State this side of the Rocky Mountains except gallant New Jersey, where alone 
it was beaten. Nor is this strength a thing of yesterday — a summer cloud which 
we may hope will pass away as rapidly as it gathered. Since the anti-slavery 
candidate, Birney, received seven thousand and fifty-nine votes in. 1840, each 
presidential election has shown a steady growth in the party vote, «!kcept in 
18-32, when it met an accidental and temporary check. The intermediate Sui'.q. 
elections show the same progression. 

This party, then, now calling itself Republican, has steadily advanced for 



many years, until it has gained possession of all the northern States, in «very 
department of their State governments, with very few exceptions. It controls 
this House of Representatives ; and after the 4th of March there will be thirty 
avowed Republican Senators, besides two from Kansas, if admitted — within two 
or five, as the case may be, of a majority of the Senate, were all the southern 
8tates still in the Union. Nor can there be a doubt that nothing but the acci- 
dental length of the terms of the remaining six Democratic Senators from the 
North preveuts our then seeing every northern State represented by Republi- 
cans. It cannot be long before the entire legislative as well as the executive 
department of the Federal Government is in possession of this party, unless 
some mighty change occurs in northern sentiment. Nor can we expect Buch a 
change from ordinary causes ; for schools, pulpits, and books, have trained the 
northern mind to a strong and fixed hostility to African slavery : and this is pre- 
cisely the feeling on which the Republican party is founded. Anti-slavery: 
this is its central idea, its vital principle, without which it never could have 
come into being, and without which it would now dissolve. Here is its tower 
of strength, and it has flourished just in proportion as it has been true to this 
flat;. Around it mtty be grouped camp-followers and mercenaries, always 
attendant on victory : the various factions, each with its individual purpose, 
which it hopes to promote under the shadow of its great leader. But the heart 
of the party, its active, progressive element, which interpenetrates all others, 
and moulds and controls them to its purpose ; which gives it vigor in the fight, 
and rallies popular enthusiasm to its cause, is the anti-slavery sentiment. As 
Mr. Seward said : 

"The secret of its Buccesa lies in the fact that it ih a party of one idea ; but that idea is a noble 
one, an idea that fills and expands all generous souls — the idea of equality, the equality of all men 
before human tribunals and human laws, as they all are equal before the Divine tribunal aDd 
Divine laws." 

Yes, sir, the Republican party is made up from the disbanded cohorts of th e 
former Whig and American parties, and deserters from the Democratic, brought 
together by this one common feeling. As Mr. Lincoln himself said, " the Re- 
publican party is made up of those who, as far as they can, peaceably oppoee 
the* extension of slavery, and who will hope for its ultimate extinction." "It 
is made," he says, "of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements," all 
fused and disciplined into one strong body bv eamity to slavery. More tm 
phatically still, Mr. Lincoln says ; 

" The real issue in this controversy — the one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment on 
the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class 
that does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery 
in this country as a wrong, is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment around 
which all their actions, all their arguments, circle; from which all their propositions radiate. 
They look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong." * * * * "They 
insist that it should, as far as may be. be treated as a. wrong ; and one of the methods of treating it 
as a wrong, is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. They also desire a policy that looks 
to a peaceful end of slavery at some time, as being wrong." 

The official platforms of the party confirm these declarations of its leader. 
It was first organized because no existing party made anti-slavery opinions a ♦ 
test in its nominations. The Abolition or Liberty party of 1840-44 was suc- 
ceeded by the so-called " Free Democratic party," or Buffalo men of 1848-52. 
Meantime the Whig party had been dissolved by dissension between its north- 
ern and southern wings on this same question of slavery ; and a like fate befell 
its successor — the American party. Its northern elements uniting with this 
" Free Democracy" on the anti-slavery idea, cast over one million three hun- 
dred thousand votes, as Republicans, in 1856; and have now elected their 
President. Like ev^ry great party, it contains men of various shades of opin- 
ion, more or less extreme ; but, as in all such cases, the extreme men, those 
who carry the leading idea of the party to its logical consequences, and are 
truest to It, must ultimately govern and control the others. Even the most 
moderate are determined to prevent the extension of slavery into any Federal 
territory, because they consider it a moral, social, and political wrong and 
evil, which they are bound, to the extent of their power, to limit and discourage. 



As Mr. Lincoln says, any man '• who does not think the institution of slavery 
wrong ;" who does not " desire a policy thtt looks to a peaceful end of slavery 
at some time, as being wrong;" who does not "insist that it shall be treated 
as a wrong," is "misplaced, and ought not to be with the Republicans." 

Now, sir, it will be admitted that it is impossible for the people of any south- 
ern State to adopt these opinions without at the same time making up their 
minds to the emancipation, more or less speedy, of their slaves. In other words, 
it is impossible for any southern people to join the Republican party without 
commencing a total revolution in their internal Stat* policy and social organ- 
ization. Therefore it is, sir, that we justly charge the Republicans with sec- 
tionalism. That surely is a sectional party, ffhieh the people in fifteen States 
of the Union cannot join without committing themselves to a radical change in 
their State constitutions, and a complete overthrow of the entire structure of 
their society. So long as there are slaveholding States which mean to continue 
slaveholdiug States, so long must the domination of this party be the domina- 
tion of the non-slaveholding over the slaveholding section. Tne former will 
enjoy all the offices and honors of the Confederacy, except such inferior places 
as may be bestowed on time-servers or traitors in the Sov^h. The sectional 
majority will wield the entire power of the Union, direct its foreign alliances, 
levy its taxes, hold the keys of the Treasury, and the gates of war and peace — 
the purse and the sword — command its armies and navies, govern its Territo- 
ries, and control its destinies. The minority section will pay its taxes, but 
direct neither their kind, their amount, nor their appropriation. It will help 
to fight your battles, and to extend the boundaries of your confederacy ; but 
yourg will be the sole gain, for the new territory will be appropriated by the 
majority section for its emigration and settlement, and r im new States whose 
stars appear in the constellation of the Union will do homage to the institutions 
of that section, and be so many pillars of its political supremacy. Meantime, 
the minority section will be in a minority more and more hopeless. Southern 
civilization will be walled in and isolated beyond hope of escape, and the enor- 
mous pressure of this huge Federal machine, its patronage and power and moral 
influence, brought down on southern society to bring about the extinction of 
slavery. 

I think I do not color the picture too highly. I will suppose that the so- 
called moderate wing of the Republican party prevails in its councils. I will 
suppose that no direct attack is made on the sale of slaves be. ween the States, 
or on slavery in the States, or even in the forts, navy-yards, or District of Col- 
umbia. I will admit, for the argument's sake, that the Republican party is 
content to confine slavery within its present limits, and prevent its extensi m 
into any new territory. It necessarily follows that there can never be a new 
slave State. Our present territory, over one million two hundred thousand 
square miles, is large enough for twenty States ; and we must expect, more- 
over, large acquisitions from Mexico. The chief present restraint on the lust 
of acquisition is sectional jealousy, and this would not be felt when one section 
is all-powerful. Its ambition would scarcely be checked by the cost, whether 
in blood or treasure, of wars and treaties, whose fruits were to be exclusively 
its own, for it would levy the greater part of the expense from the subject aud 
minority section. Mr. Seward, in the recent canvass, repeatedly foreshadowed 
this policy of acquisition for the exclusive occupation of northern society. The 
time is not far distant when you would have three-fourth of the States, and 
could amend the Constitution at pleasure. 

But the moderate Republicans tell us that they interfere with slavery only 
whare they have the power, because conscience commands the abatement of 
this wrong wherever the power exists. How then, when future extensions iu- 
vest you with a power over the institution in the States themselves? That same 
conscience will not allow you to rest until you have taken measures for its ulti- 
mate extinction. You are eager for the day when you shall have filled up the 
western territory with free States, and you may number the requisite three- 
fourths. When, in 1820, you interdicted slavery in all the territory north of 
86° 8CK, you simultaneously reduced the price of the public laj.ds from two dol- 



lars to a dollar and a quarter, in order to stimulate emigration and hasten the 
formation of new States. Now, when you think you have finally secured all the 
Territories, present and future, 3'ou incorporate Into your platform, as a prin- 
cipal measure of jour party, the homestead bill. You invite all the nations of 
Europe to take possession of the Federal lands without cost ; and by this dona- 
tion you encourage and increase to the utmost foreign immigration, already 
aumbering annually more than enough for a new State every year. 

Meanwhile, the Republican party is necessarily coiifined to ther.on-slavehold- 
ing section; since, as I have remarked, no slaveholding community can join it 
without ultimately surrendering its instituti ns. But how long cau any people 
maintain a struggle which it feels daily more hopeless? How long keep up its 
spirit under the degrading influence of subjection to a Government from whose 
power and honors it is perpetually excluded ? The strengih of the defence, the 
spirit of resistance, would gradually weaken. Ambitious and active tempers — 
some, allured by the power or distinctions, others by the mere emoluments of 
office — would first profess a policy of acquiescence, and then an adoption of 
■;hose Republican principles which open'the door to preferment. Anti-slavery 
doctrines and emancipation parties would appear in the slave States, and the 
iominant and sectional party in the Federal Government would, of necessity, 
lid and strengthen them by its patronage and influence. Meantime the domi- 
nant section, selfish as all unchecked power must be, would, by protective tariffs 
and sectional expenditures, encourage its own labor, and render the labor of the 
.laves comparatively worthless. Thus the institution of slavery in the minority 
ection would be "localized and discouraged," to use the Republican phrase. 
fJndermined and weakened, and its defenders dispirited or divided, it would 
probably give way, even before the increase in the number of the free S\ates 
daced its constitutional defences at their mercy. 

Thus far I have traced the results of Republican rule, on the assumption that 
it is exercised by the most moderate members of the party. Rut such an as- 
sumption is contradicted by all history. The law of life in every party is fidelity 
to the idea which gave it existence. If the leaders falter, aspirants for place 
thrust them aside with professions of more extreme opinions. The responsi- 
bility of power, it is true, moderates its possessors; but in a popular Govern- 
ment, based on universal suffrage, such moderation is short-lived. The real 
power is in the popular masses, who feel none of its responsibilities. At the 
Morth the old Federalist leaven is widely diffused, and is especially strong in 
the Republican ranks. Accustomed to construe the Constitution most liberally 
fop power, they will perpetually press their Representatives to use it against 
what they deem the monstrous evil of slavery. They claim power to abolish it 
in the forts and the navy-yards, and to prohibit the sale of slaves between the 
States, or their transportation on the high seas; and excited by victory, and 
giaded on by a fanatical pulpit, this power will surely be used — used when the 
southern people, discouraged by subjection and divided by patronage, are too 
w eak to resist. 

The inevitable end is the emancipation of the African race at the South. 
When will this happen ? Thirty years hence, when the slaves number eight 
millions ; or sixty years, when they are sixteen millions ; or ninety years, when 
1'ieir thirty two millions outnumber the present total population of all the 
Urates ? Be it when it may, (and the longer it is delayed the more numerous 
the slaves, the worse will be the consequences when it occurs,) the destruction 
of southern wealth and industry will be almost complete; for the experiment 
i;t the British West Indies has proved beyond controversy — what indeed well- 
ii formed persons knew before — that the African will not work without compul- 
sion. You may substitute the slavery of the law — bondage to the community — 
a system of labor enforced and regulated by legal enactment — for slavery to 
ii dividual masters ; but you will get not half work ; and in destroying the 
personal and hereditary tie between master and slave, you have destroyed not 
oidy that which makes the industry profitable, but still more, you have broken 
t; 1 the essential condition on which all that is humane or good in the relation 
<;• pends. I wiii not dilate on the incalculable loss to the Nprth or to the world 



involved in the rain of the cotton culture and southern commerce and industry 
My interests are nearer home, where I see a country once animated by peace- 
ful industry, once blessed with happy homes, once advaucing under the con- 
trol of the white race, men proud of their position as peers of any under God's 
heaven, — I see this country, its industry extinguished, its homes deserted by 
the rich, its fields overgrown by the thicket, and abandoned to the improvident 
laziness of the emancipated African, while the poorer class are left to recon- 
cile themselves as best they may to social and political equality, and ultimate 
amalgamation with the free blacks. In one word, I see the southern States, I 
see Virginia and her southern sisters and daughters, reduced to the condition 
of Jamaica and Hayti, and blotted from the roll of nations. 

I ask you, sir — I ask any fair man, whether from North or South — can we, 
ought we to acquiesce in this result ? or shall we try to avert it while there is 
yet time? Yet this ruin is the legitimate, the inexorable consequence of acqui- 
escence in Republican rule, as I have shown. 

How can we avert the danger ? Shall we trust to a change in the northern 
mind? But on what grouuds shall we hope for such a change ? A change 
means, really, not the mere overthrow of the Republican party, but in that 
anti-slavery sentiment which created it, and which would then create another 
in its stead, as Mr. Seward truly said. 

Truth is mighty, and will prevail; but Truth is proverbially a slow trav- 
eller, and before you can hope to work such a change at the North by ordinary 
causes, the evil will have been done, and our ruin accomplished. Past history 
shows that the present working of onr political machinery has been favorable 
to the growth of this anti-slavery power. Twenty-five years ago it was not 
tolerated at the North itself; its public meetings were broken up by mobs; its 
printing offices burned down ; and northern Governors recommended its repres- 
sion by legal enactment. How changed the scene now, when it controls nearly 
every department of Government, State and Federal ; and when conspiracies 
are formed for the armed invasion of sister States, and neither laws proposed 
nor indictments found to punish the conspirators ! Here is a change indeed, 
but a change against, not for us — the only change, I fear, we can hope. I ask 
no better proof of the firm hold this anti-slavery feeling has on the northern 
heart, than the recent disruption of the Democratic party, which was clearly 
due to. the general aversion to slavery, and the determination that it shall not 
be extended to any new territory. How could it be otherwise ? Or how can 
we hope to obtain even a hearing there ? A few in the cities may listen to us; 
but the rural millions, how can we reach them ? The schools, the pulpits, and 
the press, all their literature and all their teachers, daily impress on their minds 
the impolicy and sinfulness of slavery. Some urge active measures to remedy 
this wrong ; others would separate the practice from the principle — a caution 
not easily taught to a conscientious and active people of the Puritan stock. 
These sons of the Mayflower will never rest easy under a conviction of their 
neighbor's sins, without aggressive efforts for his compulsory salvation. 

Mr. Calhoun, as long ago as 1833, predicted that .this anti- slavery feeling 
would dissolve all parties formed on other issues. And were it possible to re- 
store the old Whig and Democratic parties, the history of the last twenty years 
would be repeated more quickly. This consequence necessarily results from 
the organization of political society at the North. In populous communities, 
where all are of the same race, and universal suffrage and apportionment of 
representation on mere numbers prevail, the Democracy necessarily becomes a 
government, or rather, a despotism of the numerical majority. There are many 
who have to labor too severely for their daily subsistence to devote much atten- 
tion to political affairs, of to acquire that trainiug which is necessary to 
freemen for an intelligent judgment of the issues of the day. M:;ny votes are 
controlled in great part by patronage and money, directly or indirectly used. 
Where parties are nicely balanced, that will be successful which commands the 
largest influences of this corrupting kind. Hence party contests are chiefly for 
the spoils ; and there is a constant tendency'to increase the number of offices, the 
amount of expenditures, and contracts, and jobs — in one word, to swell the 



8 

spoils. In this state of things, when a party appears like the original anti-sla- 
very party, animated by fanatical zeal for a single idea, each of the great di- 
visions of the spoils parties of necessity begins to bid for its vote, and, instead 
of resisting, to yield to its errors. Thus its principles are gradually diffused 
through the masses, until at last, adopted openly by one of the regular 
parties, they conduct it to victory, and gain for it the coveted spoils. Mean- 
time, the educated and conservative classes, with a few honorable exceptions, 
give way to an unfortunate but natural disgus't for political contests conducted 
by such low arts, and determined by such unworthy means. They, the natural 
leaders of society, withdraw themselves from public affairs. They grumble at, 
but pay, the enormous taxes which support extravagant municipal and State 
expenditures. They forget politics, except on rare occasions, and are contented 
to accumulate wealth, to exhaust invention in new modes of luxury, or to in- 
dulge as dilettanti in art or literature. The vulgar concerns of Governmeot are 
left, for the most part, to political intrigues, and corrupt caucuses, which control 
the rowdies and the ignorant. 

How strikingly does every day's experience verify this reasoning ! How dif- 
ferent from the men of old is the race of men who now appear in our public 
councils ! How inordinately have our expenditures increased ! How little re- 
gard is shown, or even professed, lor the letter of the Constitution ! In fact, 
how few even know what it is! How corrupt is our Government in nearly all 
its branches ; and how little northern constituencies seem to care for it ! Con- 
gress is reduced to the open shame of accusing and expelling its own members 
for corruption, to be re-elected, however, sotm after. Scarcely a claim is al- 
lowed, or an appropriation made, without the taint of suspicion ; and the army 
militant of contract-jobbers and office-seekers, in national conventions, make the 
Presidency itself almost as much a subject of traffic as was the Eoman empire 
in the days of Didius Julianus. \ 

A few .years since, in Wisconsin, Legislature, Governor, and Judges, stood con- 
victed of corruption so universal, that there was none left to punish it. The 
New York press, of all parties, is unanimous about one thing only — the super- 
lative corruption of their municipal Government, and of their Legislature. But 
this unanimous sentiment does not avail to change either, for they are the gov- 
ernments of mere numbers, working by universal suffrage in a community where, 
according to the official report of the Secretary of State, in 1858, of th'e whole 
population one in every sixty-four was the inmate of an almshouse, and one in 
every thirteen and a half in a condition to require relief from Government offi- 
cials. It must have been to such governments that Mr. Seward referred when 
he said, in his recent Astor House speech, that not a State could maintain its 
organization without fhe conservative influence of the Federal Government. 

It is vain, therefore, to expect safety from a change of parties at the Nor:h. 

Still less is the remedy for our present troubles to be found in any mere legis- 
lation by Congress, or even in a repeal of the obnoxious personal liberty stat- 
utes of the northern States, except it were evidence of a change of opinion as 
to slavery. The present fugitive slave law is stringent enough, were the hearts 
of the people inclined to obey it. How far they are the contrary, the obnoxious 
personal Liberty Bills, the forcible rescue of captured fugitives, the personal 
peril of masters who claim their property, and the continual retreat of slave 
population from the border line, where it is exposed to increasing hazards, all 
witness. Nor can we hope for the peaceful and regular return of our fugitives, 
or the suppression of organized conspiracies to aid and stimulate their escape, 
so long as the northern heart and conscience are so deeply impressed with the 
anti-slavery idea. 

But, sir, I go farther, and assert that it is not for the interest of either party 
or section to leave this question open. The continual struggle cannot longer 
be endured. It swallows up all others ; makes wise legislation on other sub- 
jects impossible; paralyzes every department of the Government; and breeds 
hatred, ever growing in intensity, between the sections. For the interest of 
. both, it ought now to be finally settled. And for the South, especially, it is 
neither safe nor honorable to depend for security on the mercy of the North, 



or the vicissitudes of party warfare. The fifteen southern States cannot safely 
or honorably hold their four million African slaves, their social and political 
institutions, by the forbearance of the eighteen northern. I think, therefor^, 
that the people of the rfouth have judged wisely, when they accept the recent 
election as proof that the time, long foreseen, has at last arrived, when, the 
machinery of party having become impotent for their protection, they must 
look elsewhere for safety. And in pronouncing this judgment, I would say to 
our conservative friends at the North, whether of the Democratic or Bell party, 
that we fully appreciate their gallant services in defence of our rights under 
the Constitution. We admire their constancy under defeat, ai d their moral 
courage in boldly fighting against increasing odds ; and we shall regret that 
our safety does not permit us to await the chances of other and future battles 
in conjunction with such noble allies. But we plainly see— and we are sure 
their own candor will admit— that the game would be too hazardous for such 
momentous stakes. Even an occasional party success would but delay for a 
short time the inevitable crisis now upon us ; and it would then be likely to 
find us weakened, divided, and less able to meet it. On the contrary, we beg 
them to see that it is the part of prudence to be timely bold, and now, once and 
forever, to remove these vexed and dangevous interests from the slippery arena 
of party strife. 

The public mind, agreeing with these views, is evidently disposed to seek 
a remedy in amendments to the Constitution, which would place the whole sub- 
ject outside of Federal control. There are two kinds of amendments possible— 
the one, consisting of declarations that Congress shall or shall not exercise 
certain powers ; the other, making a new distribution of power between the 
sections. 

I do not look very hopefully on the former. For the most part, promises 
without the power to enforce the performance, are not worth much. And if 
such amendments succeed in closing the controversy on the issues now prom- 
inent, yet who can forste the various forms in which the anti-slavery feeling 
will make its future attacks? How can amendments of this character secure 
the South effectually against the malign influences of the patronage of the anti 
slavery'party ? How can they obtain for her a fair share in the honors, the 
influence, and the expansion of our empire? Yet I do not commit myself 
against a present settlement on this basis. It is the part of practical states- 
manship to meet questions trs they arise ; and though the settlement might be 
only a truce, yet if good as far as" it goes, and if the end of the truce on such a 
basis would probably find the relative strength of the parties unchanged, if its 
terms did not demoralize the spirit of my own section, I would be disposed to 
accept it. At the same time, I believe a more radical and therefore more 
permanent adjustment would be better for both sections, the North as well as 
the South. 

The present Constitution, as our fathers made it, was all sufficient, while it 
protected kiudred and friendly States, and would be so still, were all dispofed 
to fulfill its obligations with a good faith, inspired by mutual good will and 
respect. There is danger that new declaratory clauses or promises would be 
regarded no more than the old. What the minority section needs is power— 
power to secure its rights against a majority section, differing in opinions and 
institutions, and animated by fixed hostility to those of the minority. The 
danger to the minority is not only in hostile legislation, but in a hostile use of 
Federal patronage and influence, and in the absence of such positive protec- 
tion as its interests may require, whether in our foreign relations, in^ expansion 
by territorial acquisitions, or in forming ew States by colonization in such ac- 
quisitions. To secure all this, the South must have au absolute veto in every 
department of the Government. It has now become, by the force of events, a 
Union of Sections. It is to be determined whether this shall be a Union of 
superior and inferior Sections, or of equal Sections. Any permanent radical 
settlement of the present difficulties must recognize the fact, now manifest to 
all the world, whether we choose to recognize it or not, that this Union is com- 
posed of two widely-differing Sections ; and to secure to each its rights and its 



10 

fair share of the benefits of the Union, every act of the Government must de- 
pend on the consent of both. For a self-protecting power in every great inter- 
est of the community is the fundamental principle of every free Government 
that has ever endured. Neither the North nor the South can require the other 
to abandon its opposite opinions on the subject of slavery. Let each enjoy its 
own sentiments. Let the North condemn and the South approve African slavery. 
But let both remember that the only safe Union between powerful States, where 
such opposite opinions exist, is an absolute equality. And in conceding such 
a change, what would the North concede? Nothing — literally nothing, but the 
right to govern us. It would not even involve that guasi-recoguitiorx of slavery, 
which the llepublicans make a ehief objection to various moderate propositions, 
Mr. Crittenden's and others. Surely in the nineteenth century, and here 
among this chosen people, "foremost in the files of time" in vindicating for 
every nation the right of self-government, there can be no great sacrifice in a 
settlement which secures that inestimable privilege to either Section of the 
Confederacy. 

But, sir, how can we obtain these, or any amendments, to the Constitution, 
in time to avert the present clanger? Two-thirds of Congress may propose 
amendments, or a Convention of the States may propose them ; but this Con- 
vention can only be called on the invitation of the several States. In either 
case, the amendments must be ratified by three-fourths of the States. The 
process is very slow under the best circumstances ; how much slower with con- 
cealed or open opposition of very many! Can we hope that the Republicans, 
who control the northern Legislatures, as well as this House and more than a 
third of the Senate, will consent? I agree that true wisdom and patriotism 
might lead them to such counsels; and even without renouncing their peculiar 
anti-slavery tenets, they might bow before the inevitable necessity of events, 
and, acknowledging the impossibility of holding the South in vassalage, might 
acquiesce in such a division of power as I have suggested. But their recent 
votes and speeches show but too plainly that no such prudence and justice can 
be expected. They fancy that they have secured a long tenure of the coveted 
spoils and power, and that to consent to any change is to confess that they 
have been wrong. If pride of opinion or selfish ambition prevent the present 
holders of power from agreeing to such just compromises as may rebuild the 
Union, perhaps a popular election would expel them from their places, and sub- 
stitute for them men of larger and more patriotic views. But this would be a 
work of time, and meantime the building is falling to pieces over our heads. 
Nor can it be accomplished, even when new elections offer the opportunities, 
if the people of the North have any reason to distrust our sincerity or earnest- 
ness of purpose. Their Republican leaders have sedulously taught them that 
our warnings were empty gasconade, and that the Union was in no danger, and 
therefore they have never seriously considered demands which they did not be- 
lieve the South was very serions in pressing. 

But their attention is at last roused by the imminent perils of the country : 
and a hearing, I would hope, is secured. They may say to themselves that it 
is better to repair our shattered Union ; it is more magnanimous and worthier 
Americans and American principles to agree that any considerable portion of 
our fellow countrymen, who really so desire, shall govern themselves than to 
insist on governing them ; and that the South shall have the equality she values 
so highly. Such a concession, if concession it be, is wiser and more honora- 
ble than to destroy the Union in the pursuit of a bootless tyranny of one sec- 
tion over another. I would willingly hope, sir, that the northern people might 
thus feel and reason. But if so. it would be a great change since last fall ; 
and that, because situation of affairs has changed ; because actual disunion has 
at last convinced them that the South, whether rightly or wrongly, does truly 
believe herself aggrieved, and her safety and equality and honor imperilled by 
the dominant anti-slavery sentiment of the North, and is prepared, in their de- 
fence, to abandon whatever advantages there may have been in the Union, and 
to risk fortune and life itself. It will be because the northern people, then, in 
no unworthy or craven spirit, but in true love for Union, and mindful of frater- 



11 

nol blood, will yield what really cost3 them nothing, to the earnest convictions 
of the South — will yield what they did not take the pains to consider, while 
they believed that the South was insincere, .and playing a mere party game in 
her demands. Therefore, for the S ruth to postpone action for such a change 
in northern Legislatures, in nest fall's elections, as may give a majority in favor 
of proper amendments to the Constitution, is not only to expose herself to all 
the chances of division and discouragement at. home, but it is to abandon the ' 
only course that, can convince the North of her sincerity, or give to conserva- 
tive men there the strength to carry those measures which the extreme men in 
power would a short time since have refused even to consider. 

Meantime Virginia, my own State, has called a convention of her people in 
their sovereign capacity; for the 13th of February, which will decide her future 
course. She has been, she still is, sincerely attached to the Union ; she would 
gladly have preserved it; she would willingly reconstruct it. Not long since, 
she would have accepted, and advised her southern sister States to accept, a 
most moderate basis of settlement. But events daily strengthen the feeling for 
secession. Your defiant speeches, and still more insulting indifference, your 
threats of military coercion, inflame her people; your rejection of all compri.- 
inises induces the belief that you are determined to rule, if need be, by the 
sword ; and as this belief grows into conviction, so rises Virginia's estimate of 
the conditions which would make this a safe Union for the South. And let no 
man doubt where she would be in the final disruption. 

She will join no border State Confederacy, with two frontiers to defend, in- 
stead of one, cut off from the natural outlet for her emigration in the South, 
and with all the territorial and slavery controversies in the new Union, which 
drove her out of the old.. 

Still less can she, or the border slave States, remain in the northern Con- 
federacy. If the fifteen southern States were unsafe in the old Union, how 
would the eight border States fare in the new Union, with nineteen frse States ? 
How then would they resist the sectional taxation and appropriations, the com- 
mercial and fiscal systems, which, even in the former Union, have built, up 
northern cities, and fostered northern industry at the expense of the agricultu- 
ral labor of the South ? If permitted to keep their slaves, what would become 
of their increasing population, shut out from the Territories by the northern 
Government, and perhaps from the South by its Confederacy ? 

The picture would be reversed for these States in a southern Confederacy, 
and especially for Virginia, the oldest and the largest, whether she considers her 
material interests or the ties of blood which bind her to her children, scattered 
in thousands over the entire South. Virginia can never hesitate between being 
the leading State of a southern Confederacy, or the dependent follower of a 
northern. . The great statesman of the Republican party traced its lineage to 
Plymouth rock, and celebrated its victory as the triumph of the Massachusetts 
school of politics. He was right. Plymouth and Jamestown, the Puritans and 
the Cavaliers, Massachusetts and Virginia, are the great origins of the opposite 
systems of American policy and society. You of the North seem to prefer the 
Massachusetts school, as you have a right. It rests on the infallibility of ma- 
jorities — the divine right of the greater number to rule absolutely the lesser. 
It cares more to strengthen the community than it fears to dwarf the individual. 
Its ultimate tendency is to depend more on Government and less on individual 
wisdom or energy ; and its final word must be a despotism of mere numbers 
under a military dictatorship, after the French model. The Virginia school, on 
the contrary, is more English. It reduces government to its minimum of power, 
and relies upon the powers of the individual man for its strength, its prosperity, 
and its glory. Its motto is, not the Benthamite heresy of the greatest good of 
the greatest number, but the greatest good of all. Founding its society on 
the subordination of an inferior to a superior race, it would combine the lofty 
spirit and culture of an aristocracy with the equality of a democracy. If Vir- 
ginia could forget her material interests, she could never forego, for her sons, 
the interests of empire. She will never consent to close for them the possi- 
bility of playing their equal part in the drama of civilization. She knows that 



12 

to her school of politics this Union owes its Constitution and its noblest achieve- 
ments ; and that whenever the Massachusetts school prevailed, whether under 
the elder or younger Adams, as at present, the country was brought to the verge 
of ruin. Hers were the Eastern portals whence the dawning clay called forth 
that morning of American greatness — 



• whose brightness broad hath blazed ; 



Whose glorious, glittering light hath all men's eyes amazed.' 

She will never abandon her principles, or those southern States which, sprung 
from her loins and formed in her similitude, have multiplied her honors, and 
endowed the Old Dominion with a youth ever new. 

But, sir, I have wandered from the strict line of my argument. I have en- 
deavored to show that the real cause of the present difficulties is the difference 
between the social systems of the North and South, and the aggressive charac- 
ter of the anti slavery sentiment that controls the former, and which has made 
the Union the Union of a dominant and a subject section; that the South 
would have sought a remedy in constitutional amendments, had you of the 
Republican party showu any disposition to give them. But your hearts are 
hardened like Pharoah's in your pride, and the South could not safety await 
the slow and uncertain chances of new and distant elections. Some of her 
States have resorted to the only remaining course — au exercise of the right 
of secession, withdrawing from the Union in the same manner and by the 
same authority they entered it. And thus, whether you acknowledge it or 
not, the Union is dissolved. For, even if you resort to civil war, that very war 
is in itself an end of the Union as a union between equal States; but with 
peace, reunion becomes possible. 

Peace, sir, means reconstruction; it means Union, in some form or other, 
while force is war, and inevitable, eternal separation. After bloodshed, and all 
the evil passions an i biuer hatreds which must follow, it would be vain to 
hope for any reunion. I cannot believe that many are to be found who really 
wish for the untold woes that follow in the train of civil war. There may be 
a few fanatical, or wicked men, whose vindictive natures would revel in the 
blood of their countrymen; but I trust that most of those whose sullen indiffer- 
ence now threatens to bring these misfortunes upon all, are acting blindly. 
They deceive themselves with words. They talk of the enforcement of the 
laws, and are obstinately blind to the fact that this euphonious phrase is, under 
present circumstances, but another name for civil war. When you undertake 
this enforcement in South Carolina, or the other seceding States, you will find 
yourself met by constitutional obstacles on every hand, as was well shown in 
another place by Mr. Benjamin and Judge Douglas. 

In 1882, the case was very different ; then the State undertook to nullify only 
apart of the Federal laws; in all other respects she acknowledged Federal 
authority, and her own people were divided into your enemies aud your friends. 
Now, your authority is in all respects denied; the people are unanimous against 
you; you have no party; no officers; neither courts nor juries. How, then, 
will you set about this enforcement of the laws ; this pworn duly as you call it, 
which, however, you are willing to neglect in all regards except the collection 
of taxes? You answer, by holding the forts and blockading' the coast. But, if 
this blockade is to he considered as an act of peace, where is your warrant in 
the Constitution ? How hypocritical will seem your zeal to enforce the laws, 
when your first act is to violate that plain provision of the supreme law, which 
declares that vessels bound to or from one State, shall not be obliged to enter, 
clear, or pay duties in another? Or, if you wresied the authority by considering 
your blockade an act of war, then the true character of your pretended enforce- 
ment of the laws is revealed; you are at war, and being at war, you have 
acknowledged the government of the seceding State, at least, as a de facto gov- 
ernment, the very acknowledgment you now refuse to mak* for the purposes of 
peace. 

But, sir, is such a blockade possible ? I will suppose you h ive the naval 
force necessary, and the revenues, without resorting to loans or direct taxes, to 



13 

maintain it. I will suppose the Southern people quietly submit to it for a year ; 
and imagine not that the : r hearts would grow weary, or fail them, once embarked 
in the great caise. They are the sons of V ea wno endured and suffered 
un ler the entire military power of England for ten yars, and by endurance 
came out conquerors. During that period of blockade they would iiave abund- 
ant provisions; for every man who has studied the statistics of the country 
knows that the Suuth produces more food, in proportion to her population, than 
the North. For her, it would be the loss of income only ; and while her cotton 
was thus held up for a single year, what would be the consequences to New 
England, whose whole supply is drawn from the South ; to France, where south- 
ern cotton -furnishes employment directly to some two hundred and seventy 
thousand persons, and indirectly to more than a million? Above all, what 
would be the effect of this withdrawal from Great. Britain of three-fourths of the 
cotton she uses, upon which, as the London Times lately estimated, four millions 
of her people depend for daily bread? Rely upon it, sir, that, bitter and unrea- 
sonable as her prejudices may be, the same causes which have reconciled Eng- 
laud to the use of slave-grown sugar and cotton, would never suffer either 
France or herself to acquiesce in this blockade. The South need only wait 
patiently and silently, with absolute assurance that those great Powers would be 
forced to an active interference. And then, sir, how wnuld you conduct the war ! 
No course would be open to you but actual invasion, which, indeed, passion 
and resistance would probably bring about at a much earlier period. Invasion. 
sir ! invasion of what ? and under what conditions ? Of an agricultural coun- 
try eight hundred and fifty-one thousand square miles in extent, larger than all 
the empires and kingdoms of centra! Europe, yet with only about fourteen 
inhabitants to the square mile, and consequently without large cities or means 
to sustain an invading host; but, sir, not without brave men, trained to 
the use of arms, and ready to destroy the invading army, which would melt 
away !ike snows of winter every mile as they advanced into the southern clime, 
far frem their resources. Napoleon, in his disastrous Russian invasion, was 
not so far from his supplies, and in a country twice as densely peopled, twice 
as able to sustain him. Your population may outnumber ours by millions ; but 
you would be hundreds of miles from your true base of operations, while we 
would be at home. You are doubtless as brave as we are, though not more so : 
but your soldiers would be led on by the unhallowed lust to bring brothers 
beneath their yoke, while ours would strike for their homes and their altars. 
I know that fanatics daily depreciate to the northern peo le the exertions of 
the South in the Revolution, and teach that, as slaveholding is the sum of all 
human villainies, so is it the source of incurable weakness and impotence. But 
before they believe ^ueh teachers, let them read history. Let them remember 
that the words of that noble epitaph at Thermopylae : " Go, stranger, and tell 
our countrymen that we lie her ^ in obedience to her laws," were the words of 
three hundred slaveholders ; th.it the imperishable glory which still gilds the 
rocks of Attica siione arouud a nation of slaveholders ; that slaveholders car- 
ried the Roman eagles over the world, and bequeathed the Roman laws for the 
guidance of all the coming generations of Christendom. Above all, and first 
of all, let them reflect that a nation of slaveholders, but little more than a 
fourth ia uumber of the present masters of the South, defied the power of Eng- 
land, and that to them we owe our independence and our Constitution. Yes. 
sirs, when you invade us ; when, denying us the right of self-government, you 
seek to make of our States dependent provinces, and baptize your accursed 
tyranny in your brother's blood, I invite you to be bold in crime ; crown it with 
an unheard-of infamy ; choose for your battle-fields Eutaw, Guilford, New 
Orleans, and proclaim your conquest on the heights of Yorktown ! Ay, sir, be- 
fore that day comes, the blood of our men, of our women, and of our children, 
will have incarnadined our mighty seas and rivers, and our country shall return 
to primeval desolation. Such are the inevitable results of what you call peace 
— a peaceable enforcement of the laws, — peace! peace, such as the tiger gives 
to his prey. Peace, such as the old Roman gave to his conquered foes — ubi toli- 
tudinem faciunt, pacem vocant! 



14 

But, sir, no sane man believes that we could be conquered. If we have no 
ehips-of-war, you have vessels in abundance who would accept our letters of 
marque and reprisal ; and the same northern capital that now engages in The 
slave trade could be transferred to privateering on your commerce. If we did 
not invade yi>u, we could at least repel your invasion, and cut off your attack- 
ing forces. Patience alone, on our side, would insure a victor* . But I will not 
contemplate such scenes. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stanton] yes- 
terday admitted that it was impossible, and wrong if possible, to subjugate 
the South, or hold her States as provinces. He agreed that war must inevita- 
bly end in permanent disunion, with the usual treaty relations between neigh- 
boring nations. In God's name, I solemnly adjure you, why not accept, with- 
out war, this which you concede must be the end of war ? Is war in itself so 
pleasant, so desirable, or will it make cur subsequent relations more advanta- 
geous ? Without, war, you may rebuild your Uuiou ; and if we cannot agree on 
the terms for that, you have at least two friendly nations. With war, you can 
have nothing more; nay, you will have less, for you will have two unfriendly 
nations. Reflect also, I pray you, that you cannot wage such a war without, a 
revolution in your own Government, for never was a political system less suited 
for civil war than this. You will go into the war a Union of free Republics ; 
you will come out a consolidated military despotism. Already the symptoms 
are apparent. Utterances of the public press and of public speakers, resolu- 
tions such as that recently offered by the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Love- 
joy,] all show the growing tendency of northern opinion for what it calls a 
strong Government ; all show the feeling that this so-called enforcement of the 
laws cannot be effected without a disregard of constitutional prohibitions, aud 
even a temporary suspension of that instrument by a military dictatorship. 
Evidence is not wanting that the Executive is already disorganized ; that the 
Secretary of War is no longer responsible to the President, or the Commander- 
in-Chief to the Secretary ; nay, that the Secretary holds his office in defiance of 
the Constitution, without the consent of the Senate. This city becomes a camp, 
and our streets are disturbed by the tramp of cavalry and the rattling of artil- 
lery. Your President is to be inaugurated at the point of the bayonet, and 
forts built on sites granted for the defence of southern States are garrisoned for 
their subjugation. The illustrious old soldier at the head of the Army, I regret 
to hear it said, has forgotten his allegiance to his native State, and tarnishes 
his laurels by devoting the last sands of his life to devising plans for her subju- 
gation and the conquest of the South, and his military aids post with secret 
orders in all directions to carry out these schemes for a military revolution. 
Yes, sir, let the war end as it may, you will find that you have waged it at the 
expence of your own liberties. W, iild it not be better to accept without cost, 
at once and peaceably, all. and more than all, it can give? 

What is the difficulty ? The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stanton] says, the 
insults to the flag, the denial of Federal &mh irity, the ezure of the fort3; he 
says that the South may perhaps get out of the Union peaceably after a pro- 
tracted process : but it cannot be done suddenly without war ; that it is your 
sacred duty to maintain the authority of this Government. Now, sir, I take it 
that wherever a controversy is settled, each party must allow to the other the 
benefit of his own point of view. You regard the act of secession as an act of 
rebellion, and each successive step as an aggravation ; but the seceding States 
claim that they have acted rightfully ; and if they seized the forts, it was only 
an act of self-defence, in response to your threats of garrisoning them for pur- 
poses of coercion. If we desire a settlement, no matter of what kind, it is worse 
than vain to argue upon what is already done. We must take facts as they are. 
Four States have already seceded, as they say ; rebelled, as you term it. In a 
few days three others will join them. A population of more than five millions, 
inhabiting a country of five hundred and twenty-three thousand two huudred 
square miles — a country twice and a half as large as France, nearly as large as 
the French and Austrian and Prussian empires together — utterly denies and 
repudiates yoar authority. Eight other States, seven million four hundred 
thousand people, in a country of three huudred and thirty thousand square 



rs 

miles, deliberate whether to join them. Attempt force, and their decision is 
certain in the affirmative. How absurd to ignore such facts, or to treat such 
popular movements — movements by organized and acknowledged governments, 
and over so vast a scale — as rebellion ; or if they be rebellion, then you are still 
forced to recognize it, to treat with it — by negotiation, if you are wise ; by open, 
regular war, if you madly prefer it. 

But I address myself, not' to madmen or fanatics, but to sensible men. I in- 
vite them to do what proud old England did before the Revolution: what even 
Austria did for the Plungirians and Italians in 1S48 ; what yourselves did for 
the Mormons two years since., I invite you to negotiate. First secure a truce, 
and then seek for terms of adjustment. Do not inquire who has been in the 
wrong ; accept facts as they are. Let both parties allow the forts everywhere 
to remain in their present status ; suspend the execution of the Federal laws in 
the secediug States, until otherwise ordered by Congress. You will thus pre- 
vent the possibility of present collision and the outburst of war. Then, by 
sending commissioners, as I proposed in a joint resolution the other day, or by 
other means, you may negotiate and give time for the sober second thought of 
the people to fix the terms of friendly adjustment, whether friendly separation 
or friendly reunion. Why refuse? You concede really nothing. You simply 
acknowledge facts, indisputable facts. Your authority is denied ; the execution 
of your laws is suspended. You are asked merely to accept the actual condition 
of things as the basis of a truce, of an armistice, for negotiation. If the nego- 
tiation fail, if, at the end of the truce, you still prefer war, your condition 
will be just what it now is ; neither party will be in a worse or a better position 
for the fray. 

But I have strong faith that negotiations would lead to happier results. For, 
sir, I believe that if peace can be preserved, a reconstruction is possible and 
desirable. The seceding States will, of course, form a confederacy among them- 
selves. Negotiation between such confederacy and this would soon determine the 
conditions of reunion, whioh each could submit to its several States, according to 
the provisions of its own Constitution. I am convinced that if the public peace 
is preserved, such will be the course of events, and that every day's experience 
will show more plainly that such is the surest and speediest way to reunion. 
Meantime* other States — perhaps all the slaveholding States — may secede and 
join the southern confederacy. Yirginia, for one, would desire a voice in form- 
ing that confederacy in which her lot will be ultimately cast ; but this would only 
define more clearly what I have before indicated as the only proper basis for 
reconstruction — the recognition that this being now a Union of sections, cannot 
be safe or happy except as a Union of equal sections — equal in rights and in the 
power of self-protection. What the final result would be ; what form the new 
Union would assume ; whether it would be a reconstruction with a single Fede- 
ral Government, on the principle of this, or whether it would be a league be- 
tween separate confederacies, I know not. But this I know : that, like the 
present Constitution, it would be the peaceful development of Datura! forces ; it 
would be the logical sequence of causes and powers long preparing in history; 
and such I know has been the origin of all permanent and great political organ- 
izations. ^ 

For my part, wIiot I imagine a northern and a southern Confederacy, the one 
composed of slaveholding, the other of the non-slaveholding States, each homo- 
geneous; each with a complete and independent government ; each with its own 
line of expansion and its own internal policy, and both united by a Customs 
Union, by a postal treaty, and conventions to regulate patents, coins, weights 
and measures, and by a defensive league against all the rest of the world, 1 
see most, if not all, the advantages of our present system without any of its 
evils. You would have that internal peace and free trade; that unrestricted 
commerce and intercourse ; that consolidated strength against foreign foes, 
■which this Constitution was designed to secure; and yet perfect independence 
would prevent the possibility of interference or dissension on the interests of 
slavery, or the recurrence of the distracting contentious it now excites. Would 
not such a system be preferable for all, to the present never-ending strife ; to 



16 

this forced Union of discordant sections, which cannot agree to 'ive together, 
except as rulers and subjects? Nay, sir, -would it not be a great advance in 
the American idea of perfect self-government, which consists chiefly in so de- 
centralizing and dividing the functions of government that each shall be admin- 
istered by those only who have the same interest in its exercise ? 

The philosophic historian hereafter may remark that our infant settlements 
remained under the British Crown so long as its power and influence in the 
world were needed to protect our title to the mighty wilderness against all 
foreign races, and while we were as y»-t t^o few and too dispersed to unite 
among ourselves. He will notice that, when our numbers and intelligence 
qualified us to undertake the guardianship of the continent which it was our pro- 
vidential mission to people, our institutions assumed a new form, and we pro- 
claimed our independence, and formed our Union. The Constitution which our 
forefathers made for not quite four millions of people and thirteen States on the 
Atlantic slope, of which twelve were slaveholding, has organized and disciplined 
the Anglo-Saxon host in its westward march, (marking its successive encamp- 
ments by the foundation of free and powerful Commonwealths. He will not 
wonder that this wise instrument, first designed for a small and homogeneous 
people in their work of colonization through the wilderness, is no longer suffi- 
cient for the numerous millions, the permanent occupants of a vast continent, 
who, from one have grown into two peoples, with different social systems, dif- 
ferent pursuits, and, from the immense foreign immigration at the North, 
different in race ; and be will regard our present travail but as the painful birth of 
new organic forms for nations to whom the old were no longer adapted. And 
he will declare that, in following the natural law of our development, and con- 
verting a close into a looser federation, our friendly relations were preserved, 
and a new career of mutual prosperity and power secured for either division of 
our race. Let not theirs be a contention with blood-stained arms, but a gener- 
ous rivalry in the arts of peace ; and there will open up for our name and race a 
new order of the ages, and a new procession of American achievement and glory. 
Before Mr. Garnett had finished his remarks, his hour having expired, 
On motion of Mr. JENKINS, by unanimous consent, his time was extended 
five minutes. 



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